Acer Planning To Enter Console Market

Someone clearly forgot to tell Acer that the console market is crowded enough as it is at the moment, because according to reports the company has some curious plans in that direction.
According to Vice President, James Wong, Acer is discontent with the closed nature of current games consoles and would make its own offering an open system based on PC technology. Supposedly this would make games development an easier and less expensive venture on Acer's console, which is presumably how the company would tempt publishers over. Conversely, it begs the question of how Acer would profit, seeing as game sales wouldn't be bringing the company a license fee if the "open" stance is to be believed.

The idea of using PC parts to make a console is hardly new. The best known example would probably be the original Xbox, which packed a Pentium III processor, among other components. Microsoft's début console was a closed system though, not to mention a financial failure. Microsoft is probably the only company around able to suffer that loss in order to lay the groundwork for the second generation system.

Given that Acer's entire experience in the games industry amounts to a few gaming-orientated notebooks, the plan is probably never likely to come to fruition. Still, for now it at least makes some interesting headlines.